I’ve been so tempted to wait until tomorrow to post another (award-winning blog) that ultimately turns out to be a cruel April Fool’s joke but I cannot wait – I must opine!

According to the statistics, more and more people are reading this blog. That’s pretty cool. Still, it seems that there are only a handful of people who actually then step up to comment on my thoughts or stories. I don’t know what that means. I frankly wish there were hundreds of comments to my posts but I’m told that people generally are just too shy or too intimidated to chime in.

As the moderator of the threads, I try to be as objective as possible. Although I am firmly pro-choice, I have expressed certain concerns, reservations, etc. about the world of abortion. I am also not shy about complaining about the pro-choice organizations. I think I am blunt to a fault. Indeed, when I was a “public figure” in the abortion rights movement that bluntness got me into trouble on a nunber of occasions.

Since I am available and blunt, I am curious why we don’t have more in-depth conversations about the actual abortion process. Whenever the opportunity has arisen, I have candidly talked about how abortions are performed and in what venue. I have made a number of rather interesting admissions on this blog and am anxious to answer anything else. But it just seems to me that the “debate” on our threads often degenerates into a series of nanny-nanny poo-poo comments or a game of “gotcha” designed to try to embarrass the other side. Indeed, I have been caught up in this silliness at times myself.

So, someone says she works at a crisis pregnancy center and some pro-choicers immediately respond by saying ALL cpcs are deceitful, that they intimidate women, that – and here’s the big leap – they condone anti-abortion terrorism. People just sit in front of their computers and attack, attack, attack, barraging the opposition with persistent, inane questions or comments. Then, the pro-lifer comes back and attacks, attacks, attacks. I share my truly confusing feelings about former Senator Bob Packwood and pro-lifers see an opportunity to point out some hypocrisy on my part. Well, they’re absolutely right – at times I am a hypocrite. I guess that’s because I just don’t always have the answers. So, sometimes I just don’t know what the hell to say. Sue me!

In another part of my life, I run a Facebook page that poses the “political question of the day.” I ask what people think about Libya, taxes, legalizing marijuana, etc. And 99 percent of the time, people just reply with a monosyllabic answer. It’s

Questions and Answers

“yes” or “no” to them – that’s it. They are just so right and the others are just so wrong. It is very, very rare when someone comes back and asks a follow up question to try to formulate a more educated position. No, we’re just locked in, our feet are stuck in the ground, no one is gonna call me a wimp or, worse, a flip-flopper.

So it is that some pro-lifers will just continue standing outside an abortion clinic, yelling through a bullhorn at women entering the facility. As far as they are concerned, those women are about to murder their babies and it’s their mission to stop them if possible. It’s their way or the highway. I’m right and they are wrong. This dynamic is reflected throughout our society in so many venues. It is particularly evident in the Halls of Congress where absolutely nothing gets done because you’re either right or wrong and I don’t wanna hear what you have to say.

So, I wanna say that I welcome the participation of folks like “Mary” and “Rogie” to our threads. I have appreciated their willingness to opine and to listen. Sure they (and we) can all get a little testy but it is my hope that we can continue having a true dialogue and get away from the dueling invectives. My hope is that we can try to at least understand our opposition and base our positions on agreed-upon facts (not the “facts” spewed out by our national organizations that only benefit from the continuing abortion “war”).

To that end, I stand ready to answer any question as best as I can about why I am pro-choice and what I know about the abortion process that is experienced by over one million women each year.

Come here then and observe. The deathscorts surround the woman carrying in the victim. When one of our good prolifers tries to talk to that woman, the deathscorts raise their voices to drown her out. Of course she then raises her voice, and pretty soon it sounds like hell. That’s when I jump in with my megaphone. Let hell, I say, sound like Hell.

This is why sometimes i even question the purpose of the escorts. Sometimes they can be too much. So, you’re yelling at the women and then the escorts start yelling. Very pleasant environment. I could see escorts when hundreds or protestors were surrounding clinics but now? I wonder….

Harold, the security guard at Planned Parenthood in Reading, got rid of the deathscorts there several years ago, for just that reason. A few prolife woman now talk quietly to the pregnant women, and that’s it.

That’s at Allentown, Kelly. The deathscorts at
Allentown make so much noise that I have to use a megaphone. Besides, I hold class there every Saturday morning, and, since I can’t seem to stop them from talking during class, I use it to make sure they hear me.

If i say that you surprise me at each post i will be lying… Actually i do expect you to overcome the last post over and over. You are a great writer Pat. If only people could do what you said on this post, for sure a lot of things could become more understandable and viable as well.
Unfortunately the “i am right and you are wrong” kind of people has always being the predominant kind and that is the MAIN reason we have wars… people dying for what others believe to be the right thing to do.

Thanks, Sonia. Years ago, when I worked for a U.S. Congressman we used to have great debates and then, at the end of the debate, you’d go over and shake your opponent’s hand or even have a beer. Today, they dont debate (that implies that you are actually listening to your opponent), they just give dueling speeches and then run home to their power base and tell them how they just kicked ass on the floor of the Congress….

Unfortunately Pat, discussing an abortion per se is about as interesting as discussing my $800 uninsured toe fungus procedure. the clinical details aren’t at all compelling.

It’s only when you add in the so-called “pro-loife” emotional component: “TI’S A FRIGGIN BABY! YOU’RE KILLING THE NEXT GHANDI! YOU MONSTER! WHY CAN’T YOU BE MORE LIKE ME AND DECLARE FOR GOD AND THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE?” etc., that people get engaged.

As I’ve pointed out time and again (and must continue to do so for all the first-time readers who have never heard the term before), the very heart of the issue is the unexlained gap between what they say and what they do, and that gap exists because they can’t care for human life as much as they have to care about themselves. Aborticentrism, period.

I used to comment a lot on this thread. But really, I just like to read what you write. It doesn’t really matter the topic. I like your style, and it’s always interesting and/or funny to read.

But I digress. A year ago, I would get on here and argue with the other pro-lifers about why I disagree with you, Pam. I never said I hated you or abortion docs or anyone else. I would never condemn anyone with an opinion different from mine. It just isn’t in me to be that passionate about something that didn’t directly relate to me. So I sort of quit reading your blog for a while, and every once in a while, I’ll check in. I’m rambling…

I told you way back when (a year ago) about my husband who’s in jail, his mother sucked, his upbringing sucked. He was one of those fetuses that might have been better off aborted, really. I had been faithful to him until about a month ago. Gasp. I cheated. Big mistake, but even dumber on my part is that we didn’t use protection. The scare of pregnancy danced in my mind like the Knoxs’ in Natural Born Killers. And as pro-life as I am–had the test been positive, I probably would have had an abortion. So there. I guess now I’m on your side. And I learn everyday to ‘Never say never’. Thank you Justin Bieber.

Actually, I like Justin Bieber! Anyway, anonymous, thanks for sharing. I’m glad you’re still reading. Not that we on the pro-choice side know it all but your story is not a surprising one. Day after day, year after year, clinic staff see so many people who from the sidelines were genuinely pro-life but then when confronted personally with the situation, things looked a little different. We do not gloat when that happens. We just are glad that we were there to help that person at that time in their life…

Hey! Quick question that’s tolalty off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My blog looks weird when browsing from my apple iphone. I’m trying to find a template or plugin that might be able to fix this problem. If you have any suggestions, please share. With thanks!

As John Dunkle told me when I was videotaping him several years ago, he wants to make that woman remember going in to the door of the clinic as the worst day of her like, like entering the gates of Hell. So, Lorraine, I’d agree with you that Dunkle doesn’t have any compassion nor does he have any qualms about emotionally sabotaging her. Kate

I would like to thnkx for the efforts you’ve put in wrintig this blog. I’m hoping the same high-grade blog post from you in the upcoming also. In fact your creative wrintig skills has inspired me to get my own web site now. Actually the blogging is spreading its wings fast. Your write up is a great example of it.

i think that if lifers truly understood the needs of those who seek abortions, and acted out of true love for neighbor, rather than a political or dogmatic stance, the pro-life movement would grow and flourish.

but the motivation of those involved always needs to be love, not condemnation.

Ah, you must have read “The Intentional Hero” page of The Site That Dare Not Speak Its Name.

Real heroes don’t intend to be such; they just do what they see needs to be done. When society judges they have paid the price society specifies, it grants the status of hero to the person.

Intentional heroes create their status for themselves by selling society a public relations package.

If society buys a PR package that happens to involve the “rescue” of an “innocent victim” , then the so-called “pro-lifer” has made himself a hero without so much as lifting a finger. All he has to do to be recognized as a hero is to say, “I’m pro-life!”

Sweet. sweet deal! And I’ve already talked about the win-win game they’ve constructed.

The trouble with you, Rog, is that you define “true love for your neighbor” as what you do, not what somebody else does; the trouble with you, Chuckles, is that you write nonsense. However, your saving grace, neither of you resorts to scatology and that’s why I peruse what you write.

114Observed your post incredibly apelpaing certainly. I truly loved browsing it and you also make pretty some great points. I am going to bookmark this site to the potential! Relly great short article.

Not sure how I’ve been “in the shadows” Kalli. If you’ve read my posts, you should know a lot about my background, my family to some extent, my desires, my fears, my shoe size. I’ve talked about my work on Capitol Hill and the Nat’l Coalition of Abortion Providers, my love of the NY Yankees, my hatred of my mother. What else would ya like to know?

Why it would matter if she/he is Pat Richards or not?
Like you said you are not being honest about your not being honest about who you are, and if Pat is not his/her real name maybe is for the same reason you don’t use your real name as well… Why does that matter? Why to pick in something so irrelevant like that when what really matter is the purpose of this page… not who you, me, Pat, Dunkle, Rogelio or anybody who change his/her name to keep it from crazies….

i use my real name in this blog, although i recently was the recipient of several “incidents” that might have made it more prudent to use a different name.

but i have to agree that to a rational person who bears no ill will to pattypoo or to anyone else, and wishes only for civil dialogue, the name used is not important.

unfortunately, there are a number of people who would indeed wish to harm pat, as pat’s work was very high profile.

i think in this case, pat is just showing prudence.

in the meantime, i like pat, despite our differences and i don’t give a penny what name he or she uses, and frankly, i have to wonder of the ulterior motive of anyone who takes issue with the name that he or she chooses to use.

What’s the big deal, kalli? One can avoid people’s preconceptions, sometimes, if they don’t know who he or she is. Moreover, pride is not something I sense in Pat, and usually that’s easy to spot: look at what I say to Kate, Rog, and Chuckles!

same here:how do you keep it all together,when all you can do is cry?What words are ever apatopripre,for expressing such a sad goodbye How does one continue,with a life of shattered dreams?You never know if you’ve got it in you.Until it falls apart at the seams.When you feel the magnitude,of that fateful blow, within.You find out in a moment,if you’ve got the will to win. Will you survive through the pain?No matter what the cost,or give in to the hurt.And die with what you’ve lost?It’s never going to be easy.At times you’ll wish to die.But these times are the turning point,If only, you choose to survive.The sadness will overcome you.It will seem too much to bear.But remember, through the loneliness.there are those who care.If not a mother or a father,Then, a brother or a friend.Or seek the comfort of a loveror the solitude within.Whatever makes you wake each day,even through the sorrow.Will help you make it through the night,and see another tomorrow.I have no platitudes to offer,I cannot bear your load.But, I offer my strength to hold you up.On this long and painful road.The key to making it through this time.Is remembering your life, not to dread.But look at each day, like your very last.And live today, not the days ahead.If you can survive through the nights.And I promise they’ll seem longer.Each day which does not destroy you.Will only make you stronger.

Anonymous…1st let me say…your experience is exactly what being “pro-choice” is all about!! Sitting back in a comfortable chair and thinking about a perfect world it is easy to say “NO ABORTION”..never acceptable!!

But when faced with “walking in the shoes of many women before you”…it is NOT as simple!! So I say “thank you” to all that have stood firm against many adversaries…fighting them from the “battlefield at a clinic” to the battlefield in the courthouse all the way to the “Supreme Court” house!! Just remember you don’t have to choose a “side” you just need to allow women to “choose what is right for their side”…

A. I am glad all turned out good for you!!

Kalli…what is in a “name”?? Pat tells us who “he..she” is with every post that is written!! Always honest…never contradictory…so what is the problem “kalli kation”?? (real name???)

Pat,
You have offered to answer questions about the abortion process, as you know it. I’ve not seen many questions about the actual process whether by surgery or medicine. As one of the Loser Cruisers is forever telling me, “go in there and watch an abortion.” I’m probably one of the few, on either side of the abortion issue, who has seen more than my fair share. As a former R.N. in OB GYN, I can speak to the realities of abortion and labor and delivery, the complications of toxemia and the resultant dead baby, the joy of discovering you’re having twins when you thought you were only having one, the 14 year old (impregnated by her father) who loses her baby [stillbirth]and is told “you can try again” as if all is well on the homefront , and the bittersweet moment when a young woman hands over her child to a lawyer who is handling the adoption and the moment in the newborn nursery when you fight with the entire pediatric team to save a newborn or when you’re bathing a newborn and spot another one who is turning dark and has obviously stopped breathing in his bassinette and have to drop everything to get the little bugger to breathe. It’s all part of the cycle of life.

I also know that abortion is a good choice for most women, a really shitty choice but the only realistic one for others and a really bad choice for still others. I also know that adoption is philosophically a beautiful idea but it comes with many disadvantages for the birth mother and the adopted child. And, as some women know but will seldom admit, having children is not all it’s cracked up to be. Adult children know their mothers didn’t want them. Mothers admit they wish they’d never had children. Social workers, police, and psychologists know some women are not fit to be mothers. The same goes for the men in women’s lives, the sperm donors, who are not ready, never will be ready, are abusive or are totally absent.

I realize that you were inviting discussions about the abortion process, but I’d like to add a bit of reality beyond the bloody bits found in the suction container, beyond the hysteria of some fetal body, to more closely consider the woman in the body (Thank You Emily Martin at Johns Hopkins). There are more stories to tell beyond the saccharine Kool Aid offered by the likes of many prolifers.
Kate

totally agree, kate. I should have been clearer. I was not necessarily talking about THE abortion, although I (and I am sure you) would be happy to answer any technical questions. I meant the entire process…why staff does it (under sometimes frightening situations), how counseling works, if women are rejected by the clinic, etc.

It just seems to me that the antis are against it, it’s that simple. And they never seem to even care about what really compels a women to have an abortion, who these women are, etc. It’s just like they are totally invisible and the only thing the antis see is that fetus….Maybe I’m hoping for too much…

Much of the anti abortion, prolife rhetoric, is targeted toward the fetus, historically. I’d speculate (because I’ve not formally researched this aspect of their propaganda) that in the 80s and 90s, their attempts at stopping abortions through violence and obstructionist maneuvers were met with opposition such that they eventually responded with a second wave with newly minted tactics. These tactics includes the Silent No More group, Rachel’s Vineyard, the abortion breast cancer myth, the post abortion stress disorder myth, the mini “We love them both–Love the Baby, Love the Mother” campaign which fizzled, and, of course, the ever-present legal attacks from both local and national fronts. All these tactics, if deconstructed with a critical eye, suggest, as you state, Pat, that the antis keep their eye on the prize-the fetus. The women, like the laws of the land, are obstacles in their campaign to “save the babies” and symbollically annihilate the women in the body.
Kate

The focus is on the fetus because it is the only “victim” that can be imprinted with whatever virtues the so-called “pro-lifer” would want to be praised for “saving.”

In the heyday of the “rescue a convict” phase (the liberal equivalent of the so-called “pro-life” movement), Norman Mailer rescued Jack Abbott, which all his Upper East Side friends thought was really cool.

He’d have been a lot smarter to have focused on a fetus, which would not have contradicted Mailer’s heroism. Abbott, not being a blank slate unable to resist Mailer’s characterizations of him, committed another murder within weeks of his release.

Fetuses can’t do that. They can only grow up into horrible human beings whose deeds are so far removed in time from their prenatal “rescue” that the so-called “pro-lifer” can say it was all part of God’s inscrutable plan.

of course i don’t understand why they are screaming in front of the clinic.

set aside for a moment, if you will, that they are behaving like douchecanoes, and that the behavior is hurtful and immoral.

from a practical aspect, it is also ineffective.

who would have the courage or patience to listen to people behaving like that?

i have a roommate who is due in august.

she was stuck in a minimum wage job to which she took the bus, went home and waited on a drunken father like a slave and had no bright spot in her future.

she has completed cna school and makes more part time than she did before full time, has a reliable second hand car, comes and goes as she pleases, and will begin nursing school in the fall after her baby has been born.

her nest has been built and she is on the way to making a good life for herself and her baby.

people who are busy screaming don’t shut their mother flipping mouths long enough to hear what the needs of those they scream at are, so they don’t get to see brilliant loving young women set goals and reach them.

you’re right. i don’t understand why they don’t want to see happy endings and aren’t willing to do what it takes to see them.

William, so-called “pro-lifers” in general are of lower educational, income and class status than average. The women have more children and less education; the men have less education and lower income. Rather than attempt the extremely difficult job of overcoming their underclass status or accepting it as their lot (social mobility in America has practically vanished; we have become a class society), they vent their frustrations not against a Republican mentality which would starve their parents, which takes their tax money and gives it to the richest, and deprives their children of decent education; but against pregnant women.

The bullies and ignoramuses who flaunt their Christianity at clinic blockades are not typical of the breed, but they do reveal what the rest dare not of their desperation and need to be potent in some field of endeavor.

Usually, though, Chuckles tells us that killing kids should remain legal because we pro-lifers are sickos. Here he’s switched. Now he says killing should remain legal becaue we lack money and education. What do you think!

“incredibly healing” for women who might well be substituting an abortion experience for the true sources of pain in their life. Like Andrea Yates, they might have been “saved” by Silent No More, Rachel’s Vineyard or their church’s peculiar redemption protocol, only to fail terribly in the future.

The very first so-called “pro-life” speaker I ever heard talked about just such a group that she had helped set up in my state. When I asked her how many of the women had had another baby to make up for having an abortion, she had no answer. Once they had taught the women to blame it on abortion, they forgot about them. Aborticentrists like to stay focused on their own problem.

Ok, i don’t know if it is me only or this page is totally FAKE!
Because if i change my e-mail on the space required it will change my SQUARE design, so for that i want to say that people are posting comments in here pretending to be somebody else just to generate comments… That is being a totally lazy person without anything more interesting to do. WOW

See how the square design changes when you change the e-mail address??? How come people PRETEND to be sooooooooo smart and not to pay attention to a detail like this!
The Hanna above that post 3 times was me, the same Hanna, but if i change my e-mail address the square design will change so if you are to pretend to be somebody else with a different name be really smart and DO CHANGE YOUR E-MAIL!

Hi Kate, actually it is a little of both… I like debates, always did! But i like REAL debates. If you check above you will see that people with different names but same square animation are posting dialogues, question/answers, to pretend something. That drives me crazy. I am very much a observant of things and it didn’t take too long to notice that if you observe for just a little bit.
🙂

I hope I’m not fake! In the past, Dunkle and I have suspected that there are some fakes who obviously have too much time on their hands. I dont run this thing, I just write so I’m not sure what you can do about it. I can usually tell who is real – Kate, Chuckles, Rogie, Mary, Dunklemania….Other than that….oh, you seem real also Hanna. Not much we can do….

HEY PAT…. I use i different name than my real one but i am real!!! LOL
But i get what Hanna was saying, i noticed that before as well, and you see, above is a post of Pat Richards and right after another one from Dunkle with the same square design, so who is who?
Oh well…

Pat, those comments I made about the socio-economic status of so-called “pro-lifers” were derived from the gift Mother’s Day piece I wrote for you last year. At that time, I believe I cited the source– Craig Seaton’s “Activism and Altruism.”

You can find my original and more detailed material at The Site Whose Name Is Not To Be Mentioned.

By the way, I don’t consider it to be a blog. There is absolutely no interactive communication, which is a key component of blogs. It is more like a reference book.

It actually serves to moderate the tone of hostility on this blog. After people read through it, they come onto this site and read some of the more typical scpl stuff and think, “Uh, huh,” rather than flaming. No need to thank me for it. I delight in empowering people to the point where they will think rather than scream in frustration.

You haven’t noticed, but people who have visited the abortice– oops, The Site That Dare Not Speak Its Name have been much more civil to you when they return. It’s the ones who haven’t been there who scream at you. You’re welcome.